


Surrounded

by Whreflections



Series: Bruises verse [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Dog(s), Established Relationship, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which they pick out a dog as a family, and Spencer realizes just how well his attempts to raise Jack to be a proper fan of all things awesome are going.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrounded

**Author's Note:**

> So this takes place in the same verse as Biological Trigger…not too long after that in fact, cause the events you see here were kind of being planned in Hotch’s mind there, ^^ In my head, there’s lots more stories from this verse…so it’s now a verse, and named after a story in it I haven’t written yet. I’m sorry, my head is a weird place, lmao

When Aaron Hotchner was a boy, he’d had an Irish setter. Well, sort of. Wally looked a lot like a setter but he was a little too rounded, a little less leggy, but he certainly had setter in him and to Aaron who’d read Big Red the year he found him(at Sean’s insistence; Sean was the reader, not him), he’d seemed perfect. Wally was a wonderful dog, the kind of dog any boy would’ve been proud to have. He fetched errant baseballs and dove ready into even the thickest woods, and he took turns sleeping with Aaron and Sean, trying his best to remind them they were equally loved. He was magnificent, and until their father threw a chair at him one night in one of his drunken rages, Aaron would’ve told anyone they were inseparable.   
  
He’d made a hard choice then, had looked at the situation as an eleven year old already gaining some of the seriousness of a man. Far more than being with him, it was most important that Wally was safe. So, he’d scoured neighborhoods he could reach on his bike but that he knew Sean didn’t venture into, and he found a family with two little girls that could take Wally. One of them played softball, and that had clinched the deal; after all, he would need a new throwing partner with Aaron gone. He took him there on a Thursday afternoon, and he never told Sean the truth, told him he’d run away. He was sure if his brother knew he’d never forgive him, still too young to understand.   
  
After that, he’d never had a dog again. It wasn’t that he’d never wanted to, just that there hadn’t exactly been the opportunity. College had been spent in dorm rooms and after that came the FBI and the first few years of incessant moves he feared wouldn’t be fair on a dog and then the BAU and well, he never felt he had the time. It was a wish he’d shelved, something to hover at the back of his mind every now and then when David and Morgan’s dogs galloped like wild dingoes across the yard when they all got together. If it had just been him, he’d probably have never gotten around to it until he was retired.   
  
As it was, Jack had reminded him. In the past year he’d started to want a puppy, an occasional plea that Aaron had had every intention to answer, as soon as they got a house. They did, and they’d planned for this and he and Spencer both had talked to Jack about what puppies needed and how they’d have to take him or her along to Jessica’s too whenever they left on the jet, and through all of that, in his head it was a tiny version of Wally he kept seeing.   
  
He didn’t realize it at first, but even after he’d told Jack they could go to the shelter as a family and pick out a puppy, it was only faces like the one he’d lost that he kept seeing, all feathery setter legs with noble faces.   
  
A great dane had been just about the furthest thing from his mind, but there Jack was on the ground in front of him, arms thrown around the neck of what looked vaguely like a small white pony.   
  
“Her, dad. I want this puppy.”   
  
Resisting the urge to scrub a hand over his eyes, Hotch raised his eyebrows as he looked down at his son. “ ‘Puppy?’ “   
  
“Actually it’s true, it says here Ariel is only 11 months old.” Spencer, ever one for facts, had just flicked his eyes over the cage card, taking it all in. “She’s also deaf, which isn’t surprising considering that the majority of white danes are deaf. It comes from a mutation in the merle gene, a-“   
  
“ _Spencer_.” Most of the time at home, he let Spencer ramble until he was finished but right now wasn’t exactly the time for a genetics lecture. Right now they needed to talk, because a great dane just didn’t look or sound practical to him for two people who were lucky if they had two whole weeks in a row at home, and there Jack was, snuggling into her neck and already getting attached. “Can we…” He jerked his head to the side, motioning him away from Jack and a little down the hall. They could keep him in sight and still let the barking cloak their voices.   
  
Spencer nodded and followed, hands stuffed casually into the pockets of his jeans as he waited for Hotch to talk.   
  
Hotch cut his eyes back at Jack just in time to see him sprawled on Ariel’s back, laughing as her whip tail beat a rhythm against the concrete wall. The sound of his better judgment was already getting smaller and smaller, and he hadn’t even _voiced_  those thoughts yet.   
  
“She’s good with him.” Spencer was watching with a fond smile, and there was something like approval already in his voice.   
  
Hotch crossed his arms, looked away and just at Spencer. “She’s enormous, and if she really is still a puppy she’s only going to get bigger. We may have a yard now but what about when we’re gone? You really think we can ask Jessica to…” To what, stable a horse? She looked like she could clear the dining room table in a single bound.   
  
“She already said she didn’t mind watching a dog for us, and she knew we mostly weren’t thinking about something tiny; we wanted something big enough to be safer with Jack, for both of them. Honestly, I hadn’t thought of it before but a dane isn’t a bad choice. They’re exceptionally gentle dogs despite their size and they’re usually deceptively sedentary. They’re generally highly trainable and-“  
  
“That’s another thing; you said she was deaf, I don’t mean to sound heartless but how could we ever-“  
  
“Deaf dogs are actually perfectly trainable, a lot of trainers have developed flashlight signals and hand codes; I read about this Australian shepherd once that-“ Spencer cut himself off, a rare feat, but he’d just becomes aware of the animated gestures of his hands, of the rising excitement in his own voice. He smiled, eyes bright as he pushed his hands back in his pockets. “I could train her, Hotch. We could do this, and…” He looked back over his shoulder, drawing Hotch’s gaze to Jack, giggling as he played with Ariel’s ears. “I think we should. You said yourself if at all possible we were going to go with his decision.”   
  
He had, just the night before. Spencer had been rambling about the intelligence of border collies and he’d been thinking about Wally and he’d tried to take the chance to remind them both that while a dog would be family, this choice wasn’t really for them.   
  
Despite the weight he could still feel tugging at his shoulders, Spencer  _did_  have a point. He knew more about breeds than Hotch could pretend to(he knew quite a bit already, but he’d spent some time a few days ago reading Simon and Schuster’s Guide to Dogs as well as the official AKC Dog Book), and his other objections he could honestly answer himself. She’d cost more money to feed, but it wasn’t as if they didn’t have. She’d need room to spread out, but room for _them_  to spread was precisely why they’d moved. She’d need a little extra help for her disability, but wouldn’t that be a good lesson to teach Jack, to show him that there was nothing wrong with her, with being different.   
  
Gigantic feet and all, she just might be perfect.   
  
After so many years in the BAU together, Spencer could see the decision in his eyes the minute he was made, and he grinned, beat Hotch back to the run to slip inside and reach a hand out to Ariel’s shoulder, gentle so he wouldn’t startle her. Hotch joined them, and when he took her face in his hands and she tipped her huge pink nose up to press against his chin, he had to admit he could easily see the charm. She was beautiful, heartwrenchingly sweet, and she deserved better than this place.   
  
“Hello, Ariel.” Despite the disconnect of hearing his voice, as his lips moved her tail wagged. “Would you like to go home?”  
  
A half hour later they’d filled out paperwork and said their goodbyes for the night, promising her they’d be there first thing after work tomorrow to pick her up after her operation. In the parking lot, Hotch reached for Jack’s hand, pulling him close and away from the cars.   
  
“You know what we have to do now, right?”   
  
“She needs stuff!”   
  
“She absolutely needs stuff, we’ll need some toys and a bed-“  
  
“Can’t she sleep with me?”   
  
Spencer laughed, raked his fingers through Jack’s bangs to push them away from his eyes. “You think there’d be room for you left?”  
It wasn’t until they were picking out a collar(blue and sparkly) that Jack reached up to take Hotch’s hand and get his attention.   
  
“Hey, dad?”   
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“Do we have to call her Ariel?”   
  
“No, not at all, not if we don’t think it suits her. Is there a name you were thinking of?”   
  
He looked over at Spencer then, eyes expectant. “You said the TARDIS was a girl, right?”   
  
Spencer laughed, rambled about how perfect it was for her size, and Hotch listened as they picked out a black leather leash and a rope toy. Somehow, he got the feeling he was being surrounded and outnumbered and maybe even converted, because recently Spencer had managed to make him promise that soon, he’d at least watch one of his shows with him. Somehow, he didn’t mind one bit. 


End file.
